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You can talk privately to a counsellor online or call 0800 1111 for free.
Hi there,
Self-harming is different for everybody and people use it to cope in different ways. Sometimes a person can use self-harm as a way to cope and its hard to stop. A doctor is definitely someone who can help and if you are able to go there yourself, you dont need a parent with you. Find out more about visiting your doctor.
If you're trying to stop then it can be helpful to figure out what usually causes you to want to self-harm. Once you have worked out what needs to change, you have might have a better understanding of how self-harm affects you.
Once you understand what can trigger feeling the need to harm yourself, it can then be good to have distractions you can turn to instead. The distractions you use depends on what you are like as a person, some people like physical exercise, and some may like creative ideas like arts and crafts. You can find some ideas for distractions on our self-harm coping techniques page and also on The Site.
Going to the doctor is definitely a good idea and you can go yourself. To help you feel more comfortable you may like to ask them about confidentiality either over the phone or on their website - which is where you can usually find the phone number to call and make an appointment. A really good website is Doc Ready.
Giving up self-harming is not easy and will take time, patience and dedication but to help you along the way you can always talk a ChildLine counsellor so you dont have to do this alone.
Take care,
Sam
You can talk privately to a counsellor online or call 0800 1111 for free.
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